We are excited to announce that SWOS is now a participant in AmazonSmile! When you select us as your AmazonSmile non-profit, 0.5% of your AmazonSmile purchases will be donated to SWOS. Click the button below to choose us on AmazonSmile!

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Student Showcase

Southwest Open School specializes in high school education for alternative and at-risk students. Our students come from all walks of life and are all looking for the opportunity to expand their horizons and become local and global leaders.

Check out some of the fascinating work our students are producing on the Student Showcase page...

Welcome To SWOS

Kelsy Woodson - Student Outreach Coordinator

We'd like to welcome Kelsy Woodson as our newest faculty member at SWOS. Kelsy is a Four Corners native, born and raised in Farmington, NM. She's also an alumni from Fort Lewis College with experience as a Study Abroad Advisor and a background in experiential marketing, she'll be a great attribute to the SWOS family. Learn more about what she'll be doing by clicking below.

Personalized Pathways

SWOS has the unique ability to meet each student’s educational needs through the concept of Personalized Pathways. Through their SWOS high school education, students have the opportunity to learn about career fields, explore careers that interest them through job shadowing and/or internships, earn college credit in concurrent enrollment, utilize online options for credit recovery or credit acceleration, and be the driver of their own education. Personalized Pathways give all students greater opportunities, and especially help SWOS students graduate from high school prepared for their next steps. Together, we build your future!

Expeditionary Learning

As a school operating in one of the poorest counties in Colorado, we are able to give students the opportunity to think bigger than their story by offering a curriculum that allows students to build character skills and then use them in authentic settings as we take them out into the world and bring the world to them through our expeditionary learning approach. For example, the Spanish language course called "Americanos" explores in-depth Latin American history, including immigration and migrant labor in the United States. For several years now this class has traveled to the Central Valley of California where students complete home stays with migrant families and work with an organization called Quinto Del Sol on service projects in several communities in the Central Valley. Students return from these expeditions with changed perspectives, extensive knowledge of social and historical issues of Latin American communities, and a deeper understanding of themselves. Students often remark that it is on expeditions such as these that they gain more than the knowledge and skills offered in text books, but rather deep learning that will enrich their lives and futures.